The Amish Groom ~ Men of Lancaster County Book 1 (10 page)

Back home that afternoon, as I put away the buggy and began to brush down my horse,
Daadi
joined me in the stable. I could tell something was on his mind.

“I spoke to the bishop,” he said, taking the harness from me and hanging it on its hook.

“Yes?” My heart was pounding, but I focused on running the brush over the mare’s brown flank.

“He feels as I do, Tyler. We will join you in praying for wisdom and clarity for you to hear from God. If He is speaking to you, you must listen.”

“But how will I know if this is actually
God
speaking to me or if it’s just my own thoughts made to seem that way?”

“Discernment is a discipline. That is why you must fast and pray and ask God to show you His way. Bishop Ott is praying for you even now. As am I. And your grandmother. We are already praying for you to hear from God. Like the prophets of old, if you ask Him for wisdom, He will answer with wisdom.”

I didn’t doubt for a moment that Bishop Ott’s counsel was wise, but I didn’t know what that meant for the here and now. “And what do I do in the meantime?”

My grandfather reached out a strong arm to touch my shoulder. “That is all you do, Tyler. You pray and ask for wisdom. Do not rest until you have it.”

I spent the following week in a concerted effort to hear from God—fasting for the first twenty-four hours, rising each day earlier than usual to pray on my knees at my bedside, returning again and again to the quiet of the pond because that was where I first felt that flickering summons of unrest.

Mammi
still said nothing to me about what we were all quietly praying for, though several times that week she reached out her hand to touch my face or my arm when she served me at the table, and her eyes spoke encouragement mixed with apprehension.

During the day, I kept my mind on the work I had at the buggy shop. We had a new hydraulic brake we were putting into all of our buggies, and I had a week’s worth of retrofits to keep my hands busy while I listened for an answer from God.

By that Friday, I was getting weary of the diligence this sort of prayer required. I knew God did not always answer prayers in a swift manner, but I felt a growing sense of urgency as the week ended. Everything that related to the rest of my life—baptism, church membership, marriage to Rachel—hinged on God’s answers to these prayers.

On Sunday morning, I woke well before the sun. It was not a worship Sunday, so I crept downstairs, grabbed my jacket, and quietly opened the mudroom door. I could feel the change in the air the moment I stepped outside. It was early yet for snow, but overnight a heavy frost had fallen, and I was greeted by a rousing chill. My breath came out in puffy clouds as I whistled softly for Timber.

Once he joined me, we walked across the pasture to the windmill and then took the well-worn path down to the pond, icy grass crunching under my boots. The surface of the water was lightly frozen around the edges, and I was tempted to break the thin layer of ice so that I could see my reflection, so I could search for the me on the other side. I didn’t, though. Somehow it didn’t seem right to disturb what the finger of God had done overnight.

As Timber made his usual sniffing tour of the shoreline, I knelt there at the bank, closed my eyes, and prayed with renewed vigor.

Lord, You know all things. You know what has been keeping me awake at night and dropping me to my knees in the morning. I don’t want to feel restless and unsettled anymore. I humbly ask that You would reveal to me whether You are testing me or tugging me. Show me what to do. Show me…

I stayed there until after the sun rose, long after Timber had trotted back to the house. My limbs were stiff and cold when I finally stood and left the pond, but my vision was no clearer than it had been when I had arrived. Back at the stables, after I fed a hungry dog and tended to the horses, the morning passed slowly. I shared a quiet breakfast with my grandparents but otherwise kept to myself. No answer came the rest of that day, or the next few days after that.

It wasn’t until the following Thursday, in fact, that my answer seemed to come. I was in the buggy shop finishing up a brake job when the phone rang. My cousin Harley answered it.

“It’s for you, Ty,” he said after a moment, turning toward me.

I put down my tools and took the receiver from him, a bit puzzled. The phone was primarily for staying in contact with our suppliers on the outside. I hardly ever used it and wasn’t expecting a call from anyone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Tyler.”

The voice on the other end of the line was my father’s.

S
EVEN

I
t took me a few moments to grasp the notion that my dad had called me on an ordinary Thursday in October. We usually only talked to each other on special occasions, never just to chat. In fact, the last time we’d spoken had been when he’d called me on my birthday, seven months earlier.

My first thought was that something terrible had happened, but his voice didn’t sound upset.

“Dad, how are you?” I asked, the only question I could think of as I moved away from the noise of the shop’s interior and closer to the outside door.

“I’m doing well. And you?”

“Um…I’m good. Is something wrong? Is everybody okay?”

“Everything’s fine. I’m calling because I need to ask a favor.”

A favor? For a second, I was speechless. I couldn’t imagine one thing I could do for him from almost three thousand miles away. “Oh?”

“It’s kind of a big one. But I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

“What is it?”

“What are you doing for the next month? Say, through the end of November?”

I blinked, not sure I understood the question. For the next month I would be working here in the buggy shop, as always. He should know that.

He didn’t wait for an answer before he continued. “The thing is, I need you to come out here to California. I need you to come and stay with Brady.”

“Stay with Brady?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. It’s kind of complicated. We’ve never had this happen before, but it turns out that Liz and I are both going to be out of the country at the same time.”

“Out of the country?” I asked, starting to feel like a parrot.

“She’s about to leave for Central America for a humanitarian project, which wasn’t going to be an issue. I was all set to handle things here on the home front. But now I’ve had something come up too, important contract work in the Middle East, and I don’t know what else to do.”

“I see,” was all I could manage.

“I’ll be gone for three or four weeks—and Liz for five. Ordinarily, Brady could just stay with a friend, or we could have Liz’s aunt come to the house for a visit, but this is too long a time for either solution. We couldn’t impose like that on a friend, and Liz’s aunt can’t be away from her job for more than a few days.”

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to sort this out. Liz was going away, my father was going away, and there was no one else on earth left to stay with their son except for me?

“Why don’t you just take Brady with you?” I asked.

Dad let out a half chuckle. “It’s the middle of the semester, son. Just because
you
didn’t go to high school doesn’t mean
he
can get out of it.”

He hadn’t meant his words to sound cruel, but they were. I had always been sensitive about what my father perceived as my lack of education, and nothing I had ever said could convince him that my learning had continued even after my years in formal schooling were done.

My silence must have made him realize how his words had sounded, because he switched to a different tact and tried again, his voice softening.

“Actually, Tyler, Brady has been going through a bit of a tough time lately. He could really use his big brother right now. It would be a huge help, and it would mean a lot to Liz and me if you could come spend the month we’ll be gone at our home. I can’t even tell you how much it would mean.”

“What does Brady have to say about this?”

“Are you kidding? He’s the one who thought of asking you.”

Again, his words hurt my feelings, albeit unintentionally. Here they were in a bind, and it had been Brady, not our father, who had first thought to bring me into the mix.

“I think he could benefit from your influence right now,” Dad continued, oblivious. “He made the varsity football team at school. Did I tell you that? As a
freshman
. He has a bright future ahead of him in sports, but there’s a lot of pressure on him. He’s feeling it. I don’t want him to quit the team while we’re gone. It would kill his chances, and I know he would regret it. I really need you to come and help him stay strong, help him stay on the team.”

I stood there, wordless, my mind racing.

“Tyler?”

“I’m still here.”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was crucial. He’s always looked up to you.”

“I…uh, I don’t know what to say. I have a job here, Dad. Responsibilities.”

“Surely your grandfather can get along without you for a month. He has all those sons and grandsons working for him. But Brady only has one big brother. You’re it.”

I could hardly believe my father was asking me to drop everything and come to California for a month. Could hardly believe it.

Unless…

Unless God was at work here, and this was part of His answer to my prayer.

This is not what I had in mind, Lord
, I prayed inwardly.

“We’re worried about him, Tyler. He seems to be withdrawing from us. I have friends who tell me that’s normal for a fourteen-year-old, but I don’t care if it supposedly is normal. You didn’t do this to your grandparents. You didn’t shut them out when you were this age. You didn’t shut me out, either. You’ve always had your head on straight. I don’t want Brady to blow this opportunity he has to make a name for himself in prep football. It’s pretty important here. If you want to play in college, you can’t mess with your high school years.”

While I appreciated hearing my dad tell me I had my head on straight, I didn’t think it was fair for him to compare me to Brady. Our lives were completely different. Besides, my dad had seen me for what had been a total of ten days at the most the year I was fourteen. What did he know?

I’d done my share of stupid things, teenage things. It was just that the Amish in our district handled it differently. Parents, or in my case grandparents, tended to look the other way. As long as we weren’t causing problems or being disrespectful at home, what we did was our own business, within reason. It was part of
rumspringa
, the chance to stretch our wings, find footing of our own, learn the truth about the outside world and what it really had to offer. Of course I had looked like the perfect child to my father, because he didn’t get that I’d had far more privacy during my teenage years than Brady ever would.

“I don’t know, Dad. I haven’t spent more than a couple days in a row with Brady in four years. I’m afraid he wouldn’t care what I had to say about anything.”

“But you’re wrong! He respects you. You’re his big brother, Tyler. Please. We really need you to come.”

I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Maybe what you really need to do is stay, Dad. Maybe this isn’t the best time for both you and Liz to be gone.” It was out of my mouth before I could consider how disrespectful that might come across. But apparently he had not been offended.

“That’s just not an option. I have to go. And Liz has had this trip on her calendar for a year. Besides, I think Brady might need for Liz and me to be away for a little while. The distance might help us all out. Say you’ll come. Just for one month. Please, Tyler?”

I leaned my forehead against the wall and closed my eyes. This was not the answer I had been praying for, not at all. A month in Orange County, babysitting my little brother? How on earth could something like that ever help bring clarity to my muddled mind?

Worse, what if that’s not even what this was? What if the timing of my father’s request was purely coincidental, not an answer to prayer at all, and I was just misreading things?